


The Reassurance

by orphean



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Episode: s04e22 These Are the Voyages, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 03:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15787698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphean/pseuds/orphean
Summary: Jonathan Archer was back on Earth. For the first time in years, he was in his San Francisco home. In a bed that felt strange after sleeping for so long in space, he slept. He dreamt.---Spoilers through the series finale.





	The Reassurance

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the Thom Gunn poem "The Reassurance". It is a beautiful poem. Go read it.

Jonathan Archer was back on Earth. For the first time in years, he was in his San Francisco home. In a bed that felt strange after sleeping for so long in space, he slept. He dreamt.

In his dream, he was in an empty room, or maybe it was a forest, or maybe it was the bridge of _Enterprise_. Where he was didn’t really matter. Trip was there. His smile was brighter than the Florida sun. His face was happy, human, and alive. He embraced Jon. His skin was warm and Jon could feel his chest rise with every breath. He was living. And yet – Jon knew this, even in the dream – he wasn’t living. He was dead. He had died. He had _watched_ him die.

‘I’m alright now,’ Trip said, pulling away. His hand was on Jon’s shoulder, squeezing in an attempt to comfort him. Jon didn’t know if he should laugh or cry.

‘We miss you,’ he said, grappling for the words. ‘ _I_ miss you.’

‘I know.’ Trip’s voice wasn’t transcendental. He spoke in the same lazy tone he always did. He sounded so alive. ‘I miss all of you. I miss _you_.’

He tipped Jon’s face up, looking him in the eye. Trip seemed younger than he had been when he had died – that horrid, needless death – closer to how he had looked the first time they had met. He was glowing with potential and charm, intelligence hidden in his smile.

‘You shouldn’t have died.’ The tears were closing in, his voice hitching on the last word. No, he hadn’t been able to cry since it had happened. He wouldn’t cry in a dream.

‘It happened. That’s life.’ Trip was smiling, still smiling, warm and bright and how could Jon make peace with that he would never see that smile again?

‘Are you with Elizabeth?’ This had been Jon’s one comfort, that although Trip was gone, at least he could be with his sister again. It wasn’t much to hold onto, but it was all he had.

‘I’m with everything. I’m with you.’ Trip held him like a parent consoling a child, heartbroken for the first time. ‘And I’m alright. And you’ll be, too.’

‘I don’t know if I will.’

‘You have to. The future depends on it.’ Trip’s voice was calm; his voice was steady. How could he talk about the _future_ when all Jon wanted was to think about the past, the past where Trip was alive, the past when the future felt so much more certain? Trip held him, tight and close, and, in that moment, he felt peace.

When he woke up, the tears finally came. Jonathan Archer cried for his friend.


End file.
